Holy Ghost Corner

by Michele Andrea Bowen

  “Amen,” Queen Esther said and pushed Theresa, who was looking down at her clothes and then back up at everybody frowning, out of the dining room and in the direction of the sanctuary, where everyone sat waiting on them.

  “Where is Yvonne?” Queen Esther asked.

  “I’m right here at the piano, where you told me to wait,” Yvonne said.

  “Then where is Baby Doll? I thought you and Baby Doll were doing this together?”

  “We are, Queen,” Baby Doll said as she hurried down to the front of the sanctuary, completely unaware that her church members were trying not to stare at her red and green plaid corduroy culottes with the matching vest.

  “Where,” Rhonda tried to sneak a whisper, so that she wouldn’t get in trouble with Mr. Lacy, “did Miss Baby Doll find a brand-new culottes suit? And in plaid? I didn’t even know that they were still selling culottes until now.”

  “You think she goes on the Internet and finds that stuff on eBay,” Lena whispered back, being careful not to get caught by her husband.

  “That or Big Lots,” Vanessa put in and then got quiet when she noticed Mr. Lacy’s head tilted in their direction.

  “Lamont, Theresa. Come on up here,” Rev. Quincey said.

  Lamont quickly removed the padding from his Santa suit, which made it hang off him. Theresa had a point about them changing clothes.

  Watching Lamont in that ill-fitting Santa suit made Lena glad that she’d called her mother to come and get the kids. They would have given her a fit (and Lamont, too) if they discovered that he was the one hiding under that big red suit. As it was, Derrick had asked her three times why Santa was so “tall.”

  “Take off the jacket, Lamont,” James said. “Don’t you have on a T-shirt or something?”

  “Yeah,” he said and gave James the coat. He was wearing a white T-shirt with Green Pastures printed on the back with letters made to look like blades of grass.

  Rev. Quincey nodded at Yvonne Fountain, who began playing, while Baby Doll sang the end of the Darwin Hobbs praise melody, causing Vanessa to cry as soon as she heard the words “For you are worthy . . .”

  James and Vanessa took their places at the altar. Both were still dressed in elf clothes, including the long green, curled-up-at-the-toe shoes. Rhonda almost tripped over her own elf shoes as she hurried over to Theresa to get her Santa hat and fluff out her hair a bit.

  “Wouldn’t do getting married and your hair is all over your head,” Rhonda said. “Bad enough you’re standing here dressed as Mrs. Claus in a pair of hoochie-mama shoes.”

  Theresa laughed. Her wedding day, and she looked like she had just escaped from a bad Christmas special on TV—the ones where people grinned too much and seemed to forget why they were singing about Christmas in the first place.

  “The rings? Y’all got some rings?” Rev. Quincey asked, and started laughing.

  This was the funniest wedding he had ever officiated over. But it had to be the sweetest and most anointed one, too. He had prayed for this moment. But never had he imagined that the Lord would answer his prayer with such a humorous twist.

  “Yeah,” James said, and produced two boxes—one for Theresa and one for Lamont. They had given him the rings, and neither had seen what the other had purchased. James handed Lamont the lavender velvet box with Theresa’s ring, and gave her the green leather box with the ring she’d selected for Lamont.

  “Y’all haven’t seen them, have you?” Rev. Quincey asked.

  They shook their heads and resisted the urge to examine their rings.

  “Go on. Ain’t nothing regular about this wedding anyway. So take a moment to look at your rings. You go first, Lamont.”

  Lamont smiled at Theresa and opened the box. Tears formed in her eyes. It was a beautiful three-carat marquise diamond, with the finest cut amethyst stones surrounding it, and set in platinum. The platinum wedding band was encircled with diamonds and amethysts. He slid the engagement ring on her finger and waited for her to open his.

  Theresa wiped at her eyes and eagerly displayed Lamont’s ring. It was platinum with five emeralds and five diamond chips spread across the band. On the inside was the inscription “Green Pastures.”

  “Thank you, baby,” he whispered and fought to hold back his own tears.

  “Y’all ready?”

  They nodded at Rev. Quincey, who looked up at Yvonne and said, “Hit it.”

  Immediately, Yvonne started playing “Spinning Around,” and doing it some serious justice, with her beautiful, mellow contralto voice, when she got to “Spinning around, spinning around . . . I must be falling in love . . .”

  At that point, neither Theresa nor Lamont could contain their tears. They tried to help the other stop crying, and ended up crying and laughing in each other’s arms.

  Rev. Quincey began reading from Ephesians 5: 22-33:

  Wives submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as unto the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church: and He is the savior of the body. Therefore as the church is subject unto Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands in every thing.

  Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave Himself for it; that he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word, that He might present it to Himself a glorious church, not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing; but that it should be holy and without blemish. So ought men to love their wives as their own bodies. He that loveth his wife, loveth himself. For no man ever yet hated his own flesh; but nourisheth and cherisheth it, even as the Lord the church: For we are members of His body, of His flesh, and of His bones.

  For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and shall be joined unto his wife, and they shall be one flesh. This is a great mystery: but I speak concerning Christ and the church. Nevertheless let everyone of you in particular so love his wife even as himself; and the wife see that she reverence her husband.

  When he finished reading, he said to the two of them, “Do you both understand the importance of what I just read?”

  “Yes,” they answered in unison.

  “Well, let me elaborate for a quick moment anyway. Theresa, Lamont is your anointed husband. Submit to him in love, and know that the Lord will always want to lead him to cherish, honor, and love you right and in the way that you need for him to love you.

  “Lamont, you do understand the seriousness of loving your wife like Christ loved the church. It means that she is flesh of your flesh. She is just as much a part of you as you are a part of you. It means that if you hurt her, you hurt yourself. Remember that and trust in the Lord when He guides you about how you are to be with Theresa. And trust that He will show her how to love you right.

  “You two got that part, right?”

  “We do.”

  “Good,” Rev. Quincey said and launched into the traditional wedding ceremony.

  Despite the informality of this service, there wasn’t a dry eye in the sanctuary when he finished. This wedding, for all of the wacky-tacky costumes they were wearing, was a testimony to how the Lord moved and worked in the lives of His children when they turned to Him for help, learned to trust and depend on Him, as well as sought to do God’s will with all their heart.

  “. . . I now pronounce you husband and wife. You may kiss your bride.”

  Lamont took Theresa back in his arms. He looked into her eyes, ran his fingertips along her cheeks, caressed her hair, and whispered, “I love you, baby,” before touching his lips to hers and holding them there, savoring the warmth and love that flowed through him from her.

  When the kiss ended, Theresa reached into her pants pocket and put the check in Lamont’s hand.

  “What’s this?”

  “Your wedding gift from the Lord,” she answered him.

  Lamont unfolded the checked and tears streamed down his cheeks. He raised up his hands and said:

  “Thank you, Jesus. Praise you, Father. Thank you, Lord! Hallelujah!
”

  Lamont grabbed his wife and held her tight. Today he knew what it meant when Rev. Quincey once told him, “Lamont, just keep praying and hold on to your faith. Because you are about to receive blessings beyond belief.”

  Rev. Quincey, who had been told about the check by his wife, pulled out a handkerchief and wiped his eyes. He counted it a blessing to be able to witness answered prayer like this, and raised his hand up in thanksgiving to the Lord before he said, “Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you, Lamont and Theresa Green.”

  “Amen!”

  “Praise the Lord!”

  “God is good all the time,” Theresa and Lamont’s parents said in unison.

  “All the time God is good,” claimed every single person, from the youngest to the oldest.

  “Queen,” Cousin Buddy whispered, pulling on Queen Esther’s sleeve, “I don’t know what’s going on.”

  He hit the side of his helmet a few times.

  “What you mean, Buddy?” she asked gently.

  “Is Lamont really Santa Claus? Or, is Santa Claus really Lamont? And why didn’t he take my list?”

  Queen Esther sighed. She and Joseph really needed to tell Buddy the truth about Santa before next Christmas. Because at fifty-one, he deserved a bit more information about this business.

  Chapter Nineteen

  FEBRUARY 14 AND IT WAS FREEZING OUTSIDE. THE wind had blown and howled all night, and it continued on like that into the wee hours of the morning. Theresa considered it a good thing that North Carolina didn’t have winters like this every year, or else last Valentine’s Day would have been spent wrapped in every blanket in the house to keep warm. But this year, despite the bitter cold, she didn’t have to spend it alone.

  Theresa had spent many a winter’s night on her knees, asking the Lord to send her a husband. Sometimes she had waited patiently and faithfully. And at other times throughout the years, she did just like Peter, when he hopped in the water with Jesus on faith, and as soon as those strong sea waves got to whipping up around him, faltered and started to sink. But praise God, just like Peter, each time she faltered, the Lord reached out and grabbed her hand, putting this question in her heart: “O thou of little faith, why didst thou doubt?”

  She discovered that waiting on the Lord to answer a prayer, especially when you believed it was an inordinately long wait, was hard. It was during this time of waiting on God to bring her husband into her life that Theresa truly understood how much faith was needed to have faith the size of a tiny mustard seed. She didn’t even know just how little faith most folk—including the ones who were saved—actually had until she found herself waiting on the Lord to send Lamont.

  But praise be to God, she had persevered to the point where she could snuggle up to her new hubby on this cold Valentine’s morning.

  “Why are your feet so cold, Mrs. Green?” Lamont whispered.

  “I got up to get some water . . .”

  “And go to the bathroom?”

  “Yeah. That, too.”

  “I see,” Lamont said as he rolled over and wrapped his arms around his wife. His fingertips toyed with her pajamas. They felt silky and not like the flannel he remembered her wearing when they went to sleep last night. He pulled back the covers to investigate the matter further.

  “Lamont, it’s cold,” Theresa complained.

  “I know that from your feet, woman. But what I don’t know is what you have on.”

  He grinned at her in the flickering light coming from the fireplace. Theresa was wearing a pair of red, sheer silk chiffon pajamas with “Lamont’s” embroidered all over them with black silk thread. It didn’t take much light to see the black lace bra and matching thongs peeking at him through that sizzling red chiffon. Her dark brown skin glistened against all of that red—making him glad it was so cold. Otherwise, he would have been burning up.

  “Lamont’s huh?” he asked in a mannish voice.

  He smacked Theresa on the behind.

  “Is this Lamont’s, too?”

  “Uhh, yeah,” Theresa said kind of sheepishly.

  “You don’t sound too sure about that, baby,” he said and placed a hot kiss on her collarbone—one of her spots. And it was his mission to hit all the spots that would get his bride as hot as she was looking in all of the “Umm, baby-baby Valentine’s Day red.”

  Theresa gave a soft moan and Lamont kissed that spot one more time, taking an extra moment to lick her collarbone.

  “You are so bad, Lamont.”

  “Not as bad as I plan on getting.”

  “Oooo, Lamont,” Theresa said.

  “That good, huh . . . and I ain’t even got started good.”

  Lamont slipped out of his boxers and T-shirt and eased the pajama top off Theresa’s shoulders.

  “We don’t need these, either,” he murmured and slid the bottoms off, snapping the waist of the thongs, and then cupping her behind in his hands before sliding his fingers up to that bra and removing that, too.

  Theresa got as close to her husband as she could and purred with pure delight when he took the “scenic route” getting her out of those fancy thongs.

  The first part of his mission accomplished, Lamont came back up to kiss his wife’s lips and whispered, “I love you, girl.”

  “I love you, boy,” she answered him back.

  “This is sure turning out to be a very happy Valentine’s Day,” he said in a hot and sexy voice, as he rolled over on top of Theresa. She felt so good to him. He had never felt such completeness with a woman before. He had to wonder what had taken him so long to recognize and claim this blessing the Lord had been holding in escrow for him all these years.

  “You ain’t never lied about that one, Lamont,” Theresa said softly, as her hands began to travel all over him, giving extra special attention to those spots that caused him to moan when her fingertips brushed up against them.

  He gazed down into her eyes and said, “You know you something else, girl.”

  “You are, too, boy.”

  “I know.” He laughed and gave her a good sample of “something else.”

  “Ooooo, Lamont.”

  “That’s my name, baby. Say it again . . .”

  “Big Daddy.”

  “Now you talkin’.”

  “Big Daddy . . .”

  “I think I need my hard hat, girl,” he said and then became quite diligent at finishing the job he had started.

  The Greens hurried and hopped into Lamont’s car. Neither remembered Valentine’s Day ever being so cold. Lamont turned the temperature up and then flipped the radio to The Lite gospel station. This was one of those mornings when he wanted to get as full in the Lord as he could. This morning the DUDC would review the presentations from the Winters Development Corporation and Green Pastures, and then make their final decision. As Craig had told him last night, they were tired of this war and wanted to end it as soon as possible.

  Lamont didn’t feel nervous. He knew that if the Lord wanted him to have the contract, He’d bless him with it. As he grew in his faith and walk with the Lord, he was discovering what the “peace that passeth understanding” truly meant. That thing about learning not to lean on your own understanding was a powerful concept, and it was helping him avoid a whole lot of worry and stress. If Lamont had gone to this meeting just six months ago, he would’ve been a wreck and made everybody else on his team crazy, too.

  So, despite this morning’s frigid temperature, and that he was getting ready to face a devious, powerful, and fierce adversary, Lamont was happy and about ready to shout. He couldn’t wait to see how the Lord was going to show up and show out at this meeting, which was being held at his church. How Craig and Rev. Quincey managed to pull that one off was a mystery to him. But some mysteries didn’t need time wasted on being solved. Sometimes you accepted it as the blessing it was and kept stepping.

  Lamont squeezed his wife’s hand.

  “You’re looking good enough to make me late for this meeting, Mrs. Green.”
>
  “Thank you, Mr. Green,” she answered him grinning.

  Lamont gave his wife the once-over and sucked on his side tooth. The girl was so sharp he feared her outfit would cut up his leather seats. She was wearing a lavender St. John’s pantsuit with black trimming, black suede ankle boots, and black sapphire stud earrings trimmed with diamonds and set in platinum. It was a simple yet elegant outfit that signified class and good taste—especially when she added her finishing touch of that lavender leather swing coat and matching hat and gloves he loved so much. Theresa was wearing that coat the first time he acknowledged that she was capable of pulling at his heartstrings.

  “You know, you not looking so bad yourself, Mr. Green.”

  “Hey, we put on the spiritual armor of God when we prayed this morning. And I didn’t think the Lord would mind too much if I added the right outer garment to go with that inner gear.”

  “I don’t think he would, either, hubby. Because the angels assigned to help you with all of that heavenly armor, looking at you, boy, and saying, ‘He know he is big-pimpin’ today.’”

  “Girl, you crazy,” Lamont said with a hearty laugh. “But I do look awfully good, don’t I?”

  “Umm . . . hmm,” Theresa answered as she surveyed his charcoal wool slacks, lavender-tinted, gray silk mock turtleneck sweater, and gray, black and pale purple tweed sports jacket. His charcoal cashmere overcoat, a Christmas present from Theresa, was lying on the back seat. And he had the smoothest “Big Daddy” charcoal Fedora sitting on his head, as well as a pair of new black leather lace-up boots on his feet. If looking good could get Lamont that contract, then the meeting might as well be canceled.

  He backed the car out and blew a kiss at Theresa before pulling off.

  “Baby, you put it on me this morning. Umph! I am ready to do battle.”

  “Just trying to be a good helpmeet, baby,” Theresa added grinning, winking at him.